Energy for All: Broadening the benefits of community energy projects for local communities in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland

Overview

Community energy initiatives bring together people in the places where they live and work to actively engage with how energy generation and usage affect their lives by delivering projects for the benefit of local community members. The activities delivered can be anything involving energy, including neighbourhood groups supporting vulnerable local households to achieve energy bill savings, co-developing renewable energy installations such as rooftop solar photovoltaics, or sharing access to electric vehicles in a remote village. The two key dimensions that are needed to make community energy initiatives successful are active participation of local community members in energy-related initiatives, and members of the local community members seeing tangible benefits from their participation (which could be financial savings, improved health, etc.).

With the recent launch of ‘GB Energy’ by the current UK government, which has pledged to directly support and finance community energy projects as a major part of its energy strategy, the coming years offer a significant opportunity to develop such projects across the UK. In Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland (LLR), there is strong local momentum in support of community energy, building on the 2024-25 Leicestershire Collaborate to Accelerate Net Zero (LCAN) project, which has brought together local government, universities, and specialist community energy support organisations to empower local groups to establish new or scale-up existing activities.

This community-led PhD proposal has been devised by LCAN's local voluntary sector partners to go beyond business-as-usual approaches to identify how LLR community energy projects can broaden the possible benefits for local communities and to diversify local participation.

LLR has distinctive challenges and opportunities related to community energy development which include:

· Addressing fuel poverty in low-income Leicester city households, off-gas villages and former-industrial towns.

· Starting conversations amongst local people on energy and climate issues where cost-of-living pressures and language/cultural barriers may hinder engagement.

· Securing support and local community benefit for large-scale projects such as solar farms.

This action-research project will address these issues by delivering and evaluating community engagement activities on energy issues in 10 LLR communities, supported by rigorous analysis of benefits arising from community energy projects across the region. Following a community development approach, initial dialogue on local challenges and energy-related issues will be used to co-create community energy initiatives.

This project has been co-created and is supported by researchers from De Montfort University, Loughborough University, and partners at Green Fox Community Energy. The successful candidate for this project will be enrolled at Loughborough University.

Project Aims:

The aims of this study are:

1. To assess and enhance the local benefit arising from community energy initiatives in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, with a focus on equitable distribution of benefits

2. To deliver and evaluate local community engagement activities on energy issues, harnessing outputs from Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs) for the region

What is Collaboratory?

Collaboratory is a new research programme, led by Universities for Nottingham and the Leicester Universities Partnership, that places community knowledge and experience at the heart of research. This eight-year initiative is pioneering a new approach to collaboration, working closely with local communities and community-focused organisations to develop and deliver research that aligns with the needs and priorities of local communities.